When the storm blows
by Blackfan
Summary: A love story, two destiny, and the Life which plays with the heart of a girl and two boys. YohAnnaHao. Written by a French. R&R please.
1. The storm

Winter Wind

Chapter one : the storm

The wind blows one more time on Fumbari hill, making roar the wooden door, like in a long agony scream. The gust's violence makes increase the fear that Yoh feels growing in his heart. A big flash strips the sky, and the weak light that the candle diffuses in the chamber seems to flicker. The rain falls on the house's wall, and the noise resounded with force in the empty room. Yoh, rolled in the darkest side of the piece, packed a little more. The thunder makes shacked the walls, and he groans weakly. How many time? Since when was he like that? The memory seems to have left him at the same time as Her. Where is she now? What does she make? All that he sees always brought back his thoughts to Her. Impossible to get rid of the image which She had left in him, as a mark with a hot, red iron, which would never be erased completely. A huge pain when She had left, as if someone had snatched a part of his heart. He would never have believed that possible. He was always afraid of her, She liked to make him suffer, and make him cry had become a ritual, like a party for Her. But after all, he had never really wishes to flee Her.

Why? Why Her? Everything started with this voyage to the Ozorezan Mount, a long time ago. Yoh had met Her in his grandmother's house, Itako Kino. He had seen her tears, all her distress. And he had wanted to help her. More than everything, I don't want to see her tears. Never again. She had stolen his heart, his thoughts. He can't continue to live if he can't return the smile on her face. And for this day, when he had seen her cried, she had took up his mind. She had never let him alone again. The evening, when he fells asleep, he thoughts of her. Always. She would never leave him. She was going to become his wife, and even if he makes believe to his friends that he is afraid of it, that of all his heart, he hates her, it's just to hide what he really feels. He hasn't sought to wound her, to hurt her, but it's unable, simply, for him to say what he really feels. For him, to flee her, was a way to approach her in hiding-place, because she always managed to find him. If he still remains with her all the time, she would finally realizing his feelings. And Yoh can't run this risk. So he had fled her, and hope that she would follow him. And she had done it. The shaman had always believed that if she follows him, it's that she shares his feelings, that she loved him just as he loved her. That if she trains him so hard, it's because she wants to hide it too. Why would she have tortured him if not? He has believed that during long years. But the recent events had done change his opinion.

However, which she had said to him during the shaman fight had finished reinforcing his convictions. Why did she ask him to love her, to protect her from the other, if she doesn't feel anything? It wouldn't make any sense. And yet, she isn't there, she's not with him today. How can it arrive? His memory misses him. Or maybe he has deliberately locked up this part behind a wall of pain and resentment. To forget permanently that he had loved her, until he loses the reason , until to be able to give his life for her. And she had broken the mirror of his illusions, she had revealed that he believed being shared feelings. Never it had been question of sharing. Just an idea, an impression, some gestures which has made him lose his clearness, enough to make him not realize that she played with him.

And yet... He can't bring him to believe what his eyes shows him. He knows. He has seen it in her eyes, felled it in her words, he has understood the hidden sense of what she said. A hidden thing cannot be false. She also has loved him... Maybe without realizing it... But she has loved it, even just a little. And now that her gestures, her words take all their sense, She is not there. She's away from him. Why? Where is she? A stronger flash makes shake the door and Yoh curls up. A tear runs on his cheek. He still loves her...He would always love her... She would be always there, in his heart, with her blond hair flying in the wind...He could never forget her. She would haunted his night, and would return to see him during the days... Why did she go away?


	2. Doubt

Chapter two: doubts

Folded into two, the girl brings back her knees under her chin. She was alone in the big dark place that only lightened a small window. Leaned on a case, she looks at her wrists. The mark of the cords was still visible. But it isn't this mark that hurt her the stronger. Her larger wound was invisible. It was a flaw, a crack that has found a place in her soul. Since she was here, and that made now nearly three days, this crack has continued to grow, nourishing by the doubts that it found at the bottom of her heart. Doubts that she rejects of all her forces, but which however, doesn't want to disappear. Doubts about what she feels for Him. Or rather about what He feels for her. She loves him from all her heart, each fibre of her body calling him to help, each fragment of her soul praying that he arrives soon. But her spirit says to her that he would not come. Even if she loves him, he probably doesn't felt the same thing for her. She has tortured him mentally so a long time. She has forced him to do what he did not want, has struck him... But after all, she loved him. And she would always continue to love him. But the Doubt was an enemy, in this trap where her power were useless. She has waked up two days after her kidnapping, according to her kidnappers, and the fact that Yoh does not come to seek her has started to dig her heart and her certainty... Since, she arises questions, her capacities being too weak to call a ghost. Because they have disappeared as its doubts has appeared. And this storm that doesn't cease... It was the demonstration of her doubts... the strongest flashes appeared when she doubted most extremely... But she waits for him, still and always. Would he finally come soon? Or does he make fun about her feelings?

A new flash. The storm been going on for two days... And each flash digs a little more his heart, already bruised, pointing out the strength of the feelings on him that he tests and which he knows not shared now. This dark room, her, represents his heart... When Anna was here, she was always lively and beaming of delight. It was her bedroom...Sober, like she's always ready to leave. But attracting. She has always been luminous...And her heart was luminous too. Because if her room breathed the joy, it was probably to say that Anna was happy here. And yet, since now three days, he was entered here to call her for the dinner and has found an empty place, black... dark. And his heart has immediately tarnished too. The storm has then started to blow, while he was reading the small letter that she has left. At the beginning, just a little cloud. Then the sky has become heavy and has released its downpour when Yoh has felt his heart break. Anna said to him in her last word that she left. She had to leave, because she doesn't feel anymore for him, and that to live under the same roof could never bring something good, neither for her nor for him. Yoh has initially believed it as a joke and has sought her everywhere in the house. He has asked her for Ryu, Manta and all the others. But none of them had seen the Itako. Then he has returned in this room and has cried all the tears of his body. He has cried, still and still, without bring any answer of the questions of his friends, and their attempts to comfort it. But nothing could it. Never again. His heart has been broken in thousand pieces, and he could not rebuild it as long as she would miss.

Yoh closes his eyes. He hasn't slept for three days. Once more, Anna's image attacked him as soon as he has closed the eyes, and forces him to open it again. Her face, her voice, her gesture, her scent... All that she had been and would ever been returned to his memory as soon as darkness of invaded his heart. Despair. It's all that remain in his heart. He feels the need to be with her. To touch her, to smell her odour...Even just to remain close to her would have been enough to fill his heart of happiness. But she was not there any more, and his desire consumed him always more. He wanted to do all that he has never done. He wanted to say that he loves her, that she was everything for him. He wanted to pass his fingers in her hair, to touch the skin of her face, to cherish her lips... and even more to kiss her. To put his lips on her, simply. Maybe she has left because he has never done anything to keep her. He has never said to her what she represented for him, has never offered anything to her to prove her that at least, he loves her. The fear of admitting that he loves her has always fought to prevent him to make it. Fear of discovering her reaction. And if she doesn't share his feelings? If she found him boring, and if she lived there just because Asakura family has ordered her to do it? If she has spit on these feelings which he would have spread out in front of her? How would he have react? His look goes through the room, to finally end landed on Anna's letter, left in front of him. Yoh stretches the hand to catch it, and takes it as the same height as his eyes. Paper was gorged with water, short-lived traces of the tears which has shaken him during long days, and which has shattered him still a little more. Ink has become illegible by places, but the young boy has read the letter so much time that it doesn't obstruct him anymore. He reads it once again, but tears run not on his cheeks this time. They have all already left his body.

_Yoh, _

_I must go away. This decision is such difficult as for me as for you, because I liked this house. But I must go away. I remained here because these were the orders of the Asakura family. _

_But I do not love you any more, Yoh. Please, forgive me to be hard and cruel, but it is the truth. So, I must go away, so that neither you, nor me suffer from this presence that is not essential for us._

_Do not seek me. _

_Forget me._

_Goodbye. _

_Anna._

Yoh sinks into his despair once a little more. He must stands up. To seek and bring her back. But he's unable. He doesn't found the strength to rise and to continue to live. It's a new fight. The most difficult fight that he has ever known. A fight again himself. And he's losing.


	3. Hao

Chapter three: Hao

A new thunderclap. Anna walks around the part for the hundredth time. She knows it by heart, knowing each case, each trace which her movements make in the dust. Once more, she leans with a case and goes up her knees from her chest. Why isn't he there? What does he wait to come and help her? Was it possible that really, he doesn't love her anymore? The young itako pushes back this idea. No, Yoh loves her. She feels it at the bottom of her heart. And it is what hurt her strongest. He loves her, she loves him, but he's not there. Why? A memory grows in her memory. The first meeting with Hao. Why is this memory there? What can it be useful to her? By re-examining the face of their former enemy, Yoh's twin, her heart tights. Strange. Why the fact of thinking of Hao makes her so unhappy? She has said to Yoh when she has found him that her heart balanced between the two brothers. But it was only one way for her to say him to pay attention to her. It was the only reason for which she has said that to the young shaman. Then why this pinching? Because he looks like his brother, physically? The girl presses her hands on her eyes, asserting a complete black. But a tear manages to cross the prison of flesh. Why isn't he there? And why doesn't she have any more her shaman power?

Anna was forced to think slowly. The shaman powers were innate, the level of furyoku obtained to the birth was impossible to change or almost. But these capacities were accompanied by a force of the spirit. If this one were weak, the capacities would be it too. Then, these doubts that she testes would be a reason of the loss of her capacities? For the knowledge, she hasn't another choice. It was to put at light what she feels. Does her heart go towards Yoh, as she has believed during years, or towards Hao, like a Yoh surer and intimidating? The girl sighs. Still of long hours of reflection in sight.

Anna keeps the eyes closed during long minutes. These last appears endless to her, so much her reflection was difficult. Which of both brother could she love? Yoh, the soft boy, but so tender, so nice. Or maybe Hao, the same boy physically, but hard, and powerful. The image of both shamans mixes in her spirit. The first meeting with each one has been difficult, and testing. Yoh had helped her to defeat her devil, her over-soul. He didn't know her, she didn't want his assistance. All that she wanted, it was to be alone. And yet, the boy had asserted himself, saving her life. Hao, him, has met her right in front of the pache village. He was strong, tempting, but too undertaking. And especially too sure of him. No, she could not love him. Impossible. And yet.

Yoh stands up and surveys the room. Of length into broad. Then broad longitudinally. He sighs something which she would have left for him. But there is nothing. Absolutely nothing. The boy sits back in his corner and poses his face on his knees. The pain. Incomprehension. He doesn't know which feeling is strongest in him. Probably the pain. His spirit is lost in his thought and he imagines her, once again. She is sat in a field. The wind plays with her hair, which she has left floated for once. Why the life has separated them. They are made to be together. That jumps to his eyes. She is simple and ambitious, him a little soft and generous. They are complementary! And yet. She's gone, he remains alone. Only with his despair. The boy is inserted a little more in darkness which his unconscious have created. All in him calls her. His heart remains close to her, his soul is fixed on her. His whole body calls her, but she remains deaf from this call. The pain increases further and always. It's going soon to submerge him, but he makes fun about it. It would have welcome the death as a liberator, releasing him from his doubts and his rancour towards the life.

However, for him, the love is not sign of reciprocity. He has always believed that love somebody, it's to hold to see her happy, even if it is not in his company. But today, finish the great speeches, finish the nobility of soul. Only the pain is his adviser. She shouts to him to find it, to bring her back. To force her if necessary to live with him. But he doesn't manage to be solved there. He wants to see her, but to see her happy. Not with tears toward her cheeks, flooding these eyes where he would have easily drowned. All so that she is happy. But why, oh god, why, is it necessary that it's with his pain. Cannot they live together? He, unconsciously, has already imagined possible heaps of futures, where they will be together. Together, they will go out to walk. Together, they will fell asleep coasts at coasts. Together. But never, she will has left it. And here is that reality exceeded the fiction, revealing all its cruelty, taking a malicious pleasure to torture him.


	4. the truth

Chapter four: the truth 

How could it have started? The episode of the devil. In his grandmother's house. Yoh reminded the story. He had to go in his grandmother's town and met his future wife. But she has received him with coldness, speaking just a little. Then Yoh has sought to understand the reason of this folding up on herself. This girl was victim of a capacity which she couldn't control. And he has wanted to help her. Maybe without knowing why. He has not sought the honor or the recognition of this small blonde, but only, he wanted to see her happy. Her eyes seemed impresses of an infinite distress. He has crossed them only furtively, almost as if she has been afraid of him. But the boy has perceived her distress. And he wanted to withdraw it from the eyes of this girl. The only thing which he really wanted, was to see her smile. Never again see the tears running on the cheeks of this girl he loved. It was all. Nothing other, with share to remain close to her as long as that would be allowed to him. He refused to see her face twisted by pain, He does not want that her eyes drown in distress. He wanted to see her shining. He wanted to see her happy. The girl lived with his grandmother, but folded up on herself, as if she was afraid to wound the others and to be wounded in her turn. She has cut the bridges with reality. Yoh wanted to be the first to restore them. The first string, the first twists attaching her to this reality which she wanted to flee, it would be him which would launch it. It was not possible differently. Without knowing how, he has been embarked in a history which has failed to cost him the life. He has lost a friend there. But he has gained serenity. Pleasure. For him, to see the delight, the happiness shining in the eyes of the pretty itako was enough to shine his day. He loved her. Without any doubt.

Anna stretches her back become painful. The doubt was always in her heart, but she starts to see there more clearly. If she has believed to like Hao, it was quite simply because he is like a Yoh's hidden side, a face which she does not know, and who take the feature of his twin. And she wants to know this part, like all the others. Yoh is that which she loved, not shade of an uncertainty. The wall that she has built formerly to protect her soul from the aggressions of the world was so high, so dark, which she has believed there to remain locked up until end of time, without seeing more than the top of what she has built. It was so thick, that she has believed to die choked. And nothing could make her leave this jail. Nothing except him. He has struck the wall, calling her of all his forces, striking the wall to break it, in spite of its thickness. He has waited, all try to save her. But she was the only one able to deliver herself. And she doesn't want. She wanted her pain to finish. Quickly. But the blows have became again, refusing to give up. Why this boy made he such a din? He does not know her and she does not want to know him. Why doesn't he even understand it? Then a crack has appeared in the wall. A sentence, a gesture, has been enough to shake the construction which she believes indestructible. Words. No the rough force, no violence. But compassion. Pure, and not interested compassion. He wanted to help her. Simply. Without knowing what he risked. And for the first time of her life, Anna has felt tears running on her cheeks. For the first time, she has dropped the barriers. She wanted that this boy helped her to leave her jail. She already loved him, without knowing him, just for this feature of character. He was nice.


	5. resolution

Chapter five: resolution

Yoh reads once more time the letter and his tears run once more. He listens someone knock on the door but does not rise to open it. He wants to be alone. Why that does it thus make him so badly? He doesn't understand. She was the only able to explain him! He has to understand, finds her and forces her to explain! Making strong by his new resolution, he finally stands up, after several days without moving, and his legs wavers under his weight before enables him to find a certain balance. Then he makes slide the door, and leaves the house without saying a word, without answering the calls of his friends. He does not know yet where to seek her, but he knows that it would end up joining her. It was the only solution. When he has threaded his preferred sandals, he leaves under the rain. A flash streaks the sky, but Yoh does not shake any more. His face, become hard and sinks, does not let more anything appear of his usual kindness. The rain softens him quickly, and he runs under the rain, without really knowing where he goes, like if an invisible force guides him, which would makes he arrives near her. His soaked hair frame his face, masking it half under the brown wicks. He runs thus to a warehouse, apparently empty. However, She was there. He knows it, feels it in his flesh. He does not have an other choice, even if the pain would be terrible if she confirm her statements. He would only remain to him to put an end to his days, because he could not live without Her. It is inconceivable. He opens the door of the hangar and waits until his vision be accustomed to the half-light.

Anna once again goes up her knees under her chest, seeking a more comfortable position. A noise on the floor catches her attention a few moments before she sink again in her torpor. Probably the idiots who retains her captive beat they to know what it would do of her later. Why isn't he still there? Does the doubt also catch him on its perfidious and thorny arms? She knows that her kidnappers has left a word to his intention, but she can not believe that he can think one second what was written on the paper. After all, love, is it not to make confidence with the other, knowing him or her unable to mislead? And yet, herself still doubts her feelings, then why not him? He has right not to understand, to make him films, where he would be the victim where the person in charge, according to what he prefers. Would he come to seek her? Then the noise swells, approaching the tiny room where she was lock up. A noise stronger than the others, against the door, make her start, and the door slid, wounding her eyes with the little light still filtering piece contiguous to her tiny room. A figure is embedded in the door, a hard shade, from where a form of fear and misfortune emanates. Of sadness and pain too. Only the eyes of this man are visible, and they are filled of resentment and anger. The hair, leave floating, frame the face of the man. She knew him. Hao? What does he come to make here? Then he enters, and she recognizes him finally.

-You spent your time, said she with irony.

She desires to rise to tighten him in her arms, but she falls down, her legs being still too weak to carry her.

Yoh leans to disfigure her, then fall to knees and tightens her in his arms. He fears that she does push back him away from her, last trace of the fear which he has tested these last days, but the presence of this men outside has convinced him that his suspicions were not well-founded. She loved him, too. The girl, initially surprised, let herself go to a pressure which last an eternity, then the young shaman poses his hand on the neck of the girl and their lips meet for the first time. They have never had yet the courage to acknowledge their feelings, so extreme were they, and they are let go this time to the pleasure of their meeting, with the delight of knowing their shared feelings. The sweetened taste of the girl's lips are printed forever in Yoh's heart , and he release her to take a breath, before she attracts him for a new pressure.

-I have had so much fear, entrusts she.

-Me too, he acknowledged. I really believe that you have left me.

-How could you only think it? I love you Yoh, and nothing will change it.


	6. question time

Chapter six: questions time.

Hao eclipses without making more noise than when he has entered. The girl and her brother has finally found themselves and it make him happy. After all, if he has done all that, it was not for the pleasure (even if that it has proven much funnier than he has believed.) but to reinforce his young brother power. He is still so weak... So small...

-Tiny...

he releases while jumping in a puddle pool when he is finally left the house. he stops and looks at his image in the water still clear, reserve by the pond of the inn on the hill where Yoh and Anna has moved in.

-Was it really for that?

His long black hair flutter around his face, raise by the last traces of wind which the storm has brought.

-Was it really for that? I don't know any more...

He lets his brother's residence behind him and joins the hiding-place where the members of his group waits. Opacho approaches him.

-Something go wrong, Hao lord?

Hao smiles to him, of a cordial smile which he only holds to some rare people.

-No, no Opacho. Just... I need to reflect...Alone…a little.

He roses and go to sit down on a rock close to the house.

-Why am I so disturbed? Is this because of what I saw?

The shaman raises the eyes towards the moon and its procession of stars. He raises the hand towards the sky thus light, as if he hopes to be able to capture one of them and to preserve it in the hollow of his hand.

-What did you do me, little Anna?

Anna leaves the bed slowly where she was prostrate against the young shaman and, after have gently cherished his cheek, causing by-there a not very flattering growl on behalf of Yoh, she slips out of the room without making noise. She gains the balcony of the first stage, and she was lost in the starry sky contemplation.

-The moon shines high in the sky, this evening.

Amidamaru has appeared at her sides, and the ghost is pressed on the guardrail.

-Something go wrong, Anna?

-How does you dare to tell use the familiar form with me, ghost?

Amidamaru smiles.

-Not the sorrow to play the hard one with me, Anna. I cannot, like Hao, read in the people's spirit, but I can understand their gestures and their glance.

-Oh really?

-Yes. I always know to do that, even if it does not really help me in the past.

-And what do you see in my case?

She darts towards him her two black pupils like the darkest night. The moon is reflected there, drowning the distress which is visible there like if a few of will-o'-the-wisps dancing.

-I see that you need to speak a little...

-Peuh! You speak about an exploit...I have been just kidnapped, Amidamaru!

-And you return healthy and safe. I cannot oblige you to speak...But if you need an attentive ear...

-I would not call you!

The girl turns the back to him, and the wind make steal her fair wicks.

-Like you want, answers the phantom while disappearing.

Anna waits to be sure until he has disappeared to let her go to sigh.

-How is this possible? Which dumb this phantom...

She again raises the eyes towards the moon. It seems to smile to her, a sneering smile, as if it wants to make fun of the girl.

-And you, up there, what do you want of me? What do I thus make to deserve that?

Anna poses her face against the wood guardrail and cries. A long time. Yoh suddenly wakes up. He was afraid. A cold sweat slips along his spine, and he turns to Anna's place, fear in the belly. The girl is not there more.

-A...Anna? Where are you? It is not funny, really...

The boy pushes back the covers which obstruct his movements and seeks the girl in all the part.

-She is...? No, impossible...Not yet. Not again!

Yoh runs out of the part and finds him nose with nose with Anna.

-A...Anna?

He tights the girl in his arms and sighs of relief.

-Where were you? I had so fear... I believe that you have been again kidnapped and...

He stops when he hears the girl crying. She shakes against him, and when he raises her face towards his, he sees tears shone on her cheeks, such of diamonds in the lunar gleam.

-Anna? What doesn't go right?

The girl can't be solved to answer him and melts in tears. Yoh falls behind her, and is accepted on the buttocks, while Anna falls to knees, the face against his chest, the body shaken by her sobs. She breathes with difficulty. Yoh tries to protest her, in vain.

-Looks at me, Anna.

The boy tries to raise the face to him, but she obstinately keeps the eyes towards the ground. When he insists, she raises them to back-plate.

-What occurs, Anna?

-I...I...

-You can say anything to me, you know it. Anna, why do you cry?

He wipes a new tear on her cheek, and deposits a light kiss on her lips.

-Say it to me. Can I be able to help you?

He smiles to her cordially. The girl sobs still one or twice, then diverts the glance of the young shaman.

-It is nothing... Just... the pressure of these last days...It has accumulated and I need... slackening it.

The young boy was not easily deceived.

-Are you sure? Is it only that?

Anna looks at him again and smiles to him without conviction.

-Yes. Sorry to have frightened you.

-No matter. Don't worry. Nothing any more is serious.

And he attracts her against him to tighten her in his arms.


	7. another possible choice

Chapter seven: another possible choice.

The sun roses again on the inn. Yoh wakes up, Anna by his sides. He slowly positions back her hair, without awaking her.

-Never again I would be separated from you.

He deposits a light kiss on her face and left without noise. He joins the kitchen where he undertakes to prepare the breakfast. When the girl goes down, he presents her eggs and a section of bacon roasted. Too much roasted.

-Sorry but kitchen and me...

The girl sits down while smiling slightly.

-Are you sure that you slept enough?

Again, she smiles to him. By compassion. How could he only continue to like her? Of course, he doesn't know anything of what occurs in her head. Her head and her heart. The problem is precisely that he can't know. Sometimes, she almost comes from there to hope that he develops the capacities of his brother.

-Hao, why me?

If he has known how to read in her thoughts, he will finally have understood her problem. She wouldn't have had any more whereas to await his reaction to know what to make. He would have probably rejected her, and the question would have been essential more for her. Just being understood and helped. It's all that she wants today. She eats without desire the breakfast that Yoh has prepared for her and leaves the part after having thanks him. She leaves then in the bath direction.

-Even my onsen doesn't interest me any more, she says with derision.

While water heat, she lays down on the stone slabs which surrounded the small basin, and drops one with her hands in tepid water.

-How could I make?

The rounds which her hand produce stretch on all the surface of the bath, increasingly large, like to answer the echo of the question which is essential on her deepest. I cannot do that. I cannot impose that to him... When water is finally hot, she slips inside, without making movement, and leaves herself carries by the soft heat which is spread in it. The raising sun find Hao prostrate on his stone. The sleepless night that he has passed has dug of the rings under his black eyes, and when he raises, the stiffness of his members drows a grimace to him.

-Still something that I owe you, small itako...

He smiles. A truth smile. As he hasn't known since any more tens, hundreds of years. Nobody has never seen a Hao's truth smiling. Just a show of joy, from time to time, when his power gives him the impression of being able all to achieve.

-All to achieve. All to have. What a joke... I am impotent! Power is nothing if it does not make it possible to have what one wishes.

He gives his long black hair their own places and moves from there towards the house. He there penetrates and finds his group make sleepy. Opacho and Rakist awaits his return close to the door, refusing to leave their station before the return of their Master.

-Neither you...You are my friends, but you cannot anything for me...

He smiles, of a smile without joy once again, and stretches himself lengthily.

-Nobody can anything for me. I fall into my own trap.

The day is already quite advanced when Anna moves towards the door of the inn.

-Where do you go? ask Yoh which has just appeared behind her.

He follows her to length of day, as if he was afraid which she disappears while passing a door.

-I leave. I need to walk a little. Alone.

She smiles to him slightly and leaves. She walks a long time, traversing the way between the inn and the Fumbari's hill, in a direction, then in the other. The sun, the fresh wind and the feeling of pain in her tired muscles enable her to think, more clearly than she has done it for a long time.

-What did I make?

A tear beads on her cheeks, and she sweeps it with an angry gesture. Nobody must see her crying. Never. She has lied. To lie, it's not most serious. It is not the first time, and surely not the last. But with him... She refuses to hide her questions longer to him. She must go to find him and all say to him. Her steps carry her out in a lane which she doesn't know. At the end a dark masonry, obviously abandoned. Anna continues to approach, as if she is attracted by this house.

-Why am I attracted thus? I don't understand...

A window of the house suddenly illuminates. The lane, slightly enlightened, enable her to hide best than how she is, and she recognizes the silhouette which takes shape in Chinese shade on still intact glass of the window.

-Hao...blows her.

Has she been attracted by his capacity? No, this assumption is stupid. She has come here, guided by his unconscious, because it was the only means which she has to bring an answer to these questions. Anna hides still a little more in the shades of the lane. She swallows with difficulty. Hao, sinks it, terrible Hao is with only a few meters of her, his group being probably just below his room, awaiting the orders of their lord to spread terror in the city.

-Runs away , idiot!

But her legs refuse to move. It seems to her that they has been fixed in the ground, refusing any movement which could have moved her away from this shade. Hao attaches his hair in a long horse's tail, each one of his gestures being amplified by the light and the play of the shades. Anna sighs. She couldn't return for him to speak. She doesn't have enought courage for it. Not yet. After all, he has removed her and sequesters her during several days...But later...Yes, later she would return, and then she could develop the things with him. And with herself.

-Later, she promises.

Amidamaru reappears gently in the principal room of the inn, the face closed. By seeing him, Yoh couldn't have said if he has good or bad news for him, but he has already a small idea on the question.

-So? Have you done what I ask you, Amidamaru?

The phantom agrees, the air darker than ever.

-I don't believe that it's correct, Yoh.

-I know. And I don't like that more than you. I can assure it to you. If I ask you to make it, it is because I rely on you. I know that you will hide me nothing.

The phantom denied head.

-I cannot submit you a report Yoh. It does not correspond with the ideas that I have duties of a samouraï and...

Yoh made it conceal of a gesture. He smiles, an afflicted smile, and agrees with the head.

-Stop. Please. I know that it isn't corresponding with what you wait of your Master. I know that you do that to save any sorrow to me, and I also know that I have a large friend who takes care of me...

A tear rolls on his cheek. He has a forced smile, but his chin tremble.

-But your absence of reaction in front of my request is simplest and most concise of all answers. You refuse of me the statement because you know that I would be shocked, wounded by the answer. But I ask you this question in all cause knowledge, and I must thus yield with the consequences of this one. Not the sorrow to hide it to me, I understand.

He swallows with difficulty, as if the words which flow his mouth be drawn for him from force, as if a violent poison burns his throat by going up entrails.

-She is gone back there, isn't it?

The samouraï doesn't answer and diverts the face. Yoh smiles to him and locks up it with alight "forgiveness", which he leaves on the ground. Then he roses and leaves the house, with the tears traversing his cheeks.

-It is funny... he says with derision. I weigh to have known the tops of the pain, the fear and sadness. I believe to have cry all the tears of my body when the torpor seize my spirit the other day. And I discover that for each one of these things, huge tanks still lived at the bottom of my heart. The life is thus only accumulated suffering?

He runs a long time, and his tears continue to run. The sky is covered and torn when, arrives at the top of the hill, he is dropped to knees to howl his despair.


	8. meeting

Chapter eight: Meeting

Yoh remains thus prostrate on the hill of Fumbari during several hours. When the wind roses and starts to blow more and more extremely, he decides that it is time for him to go down again in this world which has choose to reject him. He takes support on his hands and tries to be raised, without reaching that point. His members are hurt.

-It is not possible. Initially the pain here... says he while placing a hand on his heart.

-The pain is the proof that you live, small.

Yoh turns over. He has not felt anybody to come. Not more one man that a phantom.

-Who is here?

A small crystalline laugh makes hear.

-Where do you seek, Yoh... My brother?

This sentence has been pronounced with a kind of mixed respect of dislike.

-Hao, blows Yoh in a scorning sigh.

A hand is posed now on the shoulder of the boy. A hand, carrying the symbol of star.

-Hello, little brother.

Yoh pushes back the hand of his elder, and plunges his glance in his brother's one.

-You are not my brother. You never were it, and you will never be it!

Hao turns the head in front of the glance full of hatred.

-They are quite hard words there...

The snap that he gives him resounds in the motionless air which seemed to observe the scene, as a witness which await the outcome.

-And this, is to learn you how to respect your brother, Yoh.

The shaman gives him the hand.

-Raise. Asakura is not made to remain on the ground.

Yoh refuses to take the hand which his brother tightens to him, but he raises nevertheless.

-I believe that we must speak, little brother.

-Yes, I also believe it...

Hao sits down on a rock, close to the road, while Yoh prefers green grass of the hill. The elder one sighs.

-Yoh, you know, I never want that, that goes until there...

Yoh pushes back the argument with a laughter without joy.

-Not go until where? You have removed me that which I need to live. She is my oxygen, my blood. Without her, my heart refuses to beat. And when you return her to me, when finally Gods accept that we are joined together, I learn that she will see you in hiding-place. And you say to me that you don't want until there? But where, until there? What it is the limit of...Of your...Of your spite, your cheating, Hao?

Hao hasn't said anything, waiting until his junior tells all that he has on the heart.

-Have you finished? Now listening me in your turn.

Yoh sighs and agrees.

-I imagine that I do not have really the choice.

-Not, indeed.

The shaman raises the head to look at the sun lying down. Still a day passes without making something constructive. Perhaps even as this meeting would not be constructive. But now that he has imposed it to his brother, he couldn't leave while greeting him and while saying

"Bah, nothing, in the final analysis. See you soon, Yoh! "

-Yoh... If I remove Anna the first time, it was just to make you become strong. I want that you realize of your dependence to this girl. I do not understand how one could at this point weaken by losing sight of the fact a simple girl.

Yoh has launched a glance full with hatred to him.

-Calm yourself, you have promised to listen to me. It is that I intend to return her to you. At last, at the end of one week, I would have released her, and she would have returned towards you.

-Stops speaking about her like object!

-Afflicted, Yoh. What I want to say to you, it's that if I did all that, it is right because I did not understand and that I believe to know the truth. But the truth is that my heart remain alone a too long time. I don't ask Anna to come to see me this afternoon. She comes from herself. And even if I feel her while she spies me in the lane, I do not do anything. I don't move. I don't give an order so that one will seek her.

Yoh raises the eyes towards his brother. He has been calmed. And he sees a star reflection walking in the eyes of his brother and going down along his cheek.

-Why? Why don't I do anything?

The junior roses and faces his elder.

-Thus, you feels into your own trap, Hao...

The shaman smiles, and sweeps his tears.

-I don't know yet. As I say it to you, I remain alone a too long time, and my heart is closed with all these feelings. At least, I believe it. But the last events make that I ask myself questions. Would I have remained human despite everything?

Yoh has a haughty smile.

-This, I don't believe that it is still possible...

Hao smiles him too.

-I will take it as a joke.

He raises and cleans his clothes.

-Yoh, if I came here this evening, it is not to intend you to say to me that I do not have any right on you or on her. I know it already for a long time.

He raises the eyes to the sky. To lay down sun baths this one of myriads of colours.

-This sky. Look at. What do you see?

-I see the star of the day lying down. I see the day leave his place, and the night taking it. I see heat giving up his throne of light to let freshness of the night lengthen.

Hao smiles.

-Perhaps. I just see especially a dominant colour. Red. Red, colour of blood, anger and passion. Why this colour is the symbol of two so distant concepts? Perhaps because it's not so distant. Passion often calls the anger, which itself is so easily comparable with blood...

The shaman lows the eyes towards his hands. A tear is crushed on one of the spangled gloves.

-I have made dreadful things. Wanted to separate a couple was an error, I realize there. But this sky is like my heart. From coloured, it passed to black like the night. But tomorrow morning, it will again be coloured. To like is the pallet of colour of the men...I found mine. And you do not have the right to remove it to me. Not again.

Yoh sighs. He has enough of it.

-I will go there.

He takes some steps and turns over towards Hao.

-I would not remove you your pallet. If you do not remove me mine. We do not have to choose. The future will say us which one is the best painter, here all to us.


	9. radio

Chapter nine: Radio

Hao leaves his young brother to regain the hearth where him and his band have moved in. He climbs the staircases which led to his room and locks up not to open the door more, to speak to nobody more. Opacho was behind the door.

-Hao Lord? Are you sick?

Hao shakes the head. But nobody could see it.

-No, Opacho. Do not worry. I just want to remain alone one moment.

Opacho doesn't add anything, but Hao feels that the little shaman remains close to the door. He roses and puts on the radio which is in his room.

-And now, the new song of this group come from the cold that you all like, The Rasmus, Lucifer's Angel.

The music starts, involving, and Hao is caught with tightening the ear to understand the words. Strange, for him which has never tested but contempt for the human normal ones, here that he behaves like them.

-Bah. Why not after all...

He assembles the sound, then returns to the window to look at the sky darkening. The voice of the singer starts the words.

_Behind those eyes lies the truth and grief _

It'sthe least which one can say...Hao has cross-piece the ages. He has known all the times, or almost, at least all those which were worth the sorrow to be lived. He has seen the silly thing of the Men, He has known their fear, their desires, their ambitions. And he has paid the price of them. Rejected by the men because different from them, rejected by the shaman because marginal... the sorrow, he knows it very well.

_Behind those beautiful smiles I' ve seen tragedy _

There still, Hao knows the song. A smile, it can be the mark of a sincere joy. But unfortunately, it's too often a mask to hide his fear. A smile, it is often to show that one is hypocritical when one human is...

_The flawless skin hides the secret within _

The idea of the mask is essential again in him. The skin is the renewable symbol. Today, to appear young, People just need to make withdraw the skin in excess, and one loses ten years. Which hypocrisy can push people with hiding their age and their wisdom?

_Silent forces that secretly ignite your sins _

_Fly away, fly away _

_From the torch of blame_

_They haunt you The Lucifer's Angels _

_Never lived, you never died_

_Your life has been denied _

_They call you The Lucifer's Angel the angel _

Even an old nickname can come out from a recent song. The angel of Lucifer, one would have just as easily could call him thus. Lucifer... Rakist X-laws which has joined his group controls this angel, most powerful of all, with Michael. Lucifer, rejects by his similar to have wanted to be caught for what he was not. He has been banished on a world which was not his. Hao is a little there him too. They are pursued her to overcome him and prevent him from carrying out his dream. One wants to cut down him because he represents the evil. But the Evil is necessary...

_Beyond these clouds you can hide all your tears _

The clouds has always been a source of pleasure for the shaman. Symbols of freedom, they are going merrily in the sky, free to take the form they like. But like everyone, they are to yield with the rules of the wind...

_Beyond this world you'll be safe from to their wicked fears _

This is a more interesting part. To erase their stupid fear, to create another world, apart from this one. The dream of Hao, shaman of stars...a world of Shaman, removes from the fear of these idiots human...World where he could live in peace with his similar...

_And in their hearts they fear your demands _

_You know their minds won't accept you, they'll never understand _

There too, Hao finds something which he knows. All the shamans know that his company is necessary, but none understand it. They know all that this world is not always for them, that this world has to be purified of these beings lower which obstruct them, which reject them, which drive out them. But none of them have the notch to cross the step.

_Fly away, fly away  
From the torch of blame  
They haunt you  
The Lucifer's Angels  
Never lived, you never died  
Your life has been denied  
They call you  
The Lucifer's Angel _

On your own I know you can make it

_Truth or bone. I know you can shake it_

At the bottom of his heart, Hao knows that his choice is the good. He knows it necessary, even if he doesn't like it more than that. But he has learned how to live, to survive. He has to pass over his dislike to survive. He has to do it, because it is the only thing to be made.

_Survives alone I know you can take it _

He has believed it a long time. But not at all now. He has during a long time imagined to be able to survive alone in a world which entirely rejects him, which denies his existence. He knows that he has to survive and ensure the survival of the shamans, towards and against all. But today, he could not claim any more not to act but in his own interest. There is Yoh. His friends. And especially, Anna. She has been essential on him, she has crossed as much test than him. She is the one which shows him the way. She is the one which make him able to join this world. She is the only one which would enable him to survive in the adversity.

_Fly away, fly away  
From the torch of blame  
They haunt you  
Lucifer's Angels  
You never lived, you never died  
Your life has been denied  
They call you  
Lucifer's Angel _

Fly away, fly away  
Run away, run away  
Hide away, hide away  
Lucifer's Angel

Hao draws aside the arms in the fresh air. He has jumped by the window and has amalgamated his Spirit of Fire to reveal his over-soul. He passes through the lane, but does not find her. -One day, one will find oneself. The angel of Lucifer is not connected yet in hell. He goes up, always higher, and bores the clouds before disappearing in the night.


	10. the colours mixture

Chapter ten: the mixture of the colours

Yoh regains the inn slowly. He fears to go back there. He doesn't know how he would react if she was there. He does not know how he has to react by seeing her, if he is going to say her that he knows, or if he has to keep silence. And would he just be able?

-The syndrome of Stockholm... Why that falls on him above?

He approaches the large gate and opens it. The light of the kitchen cuts out the frail body of the girl in Chinese shade on the shutters of bamboo.

-Anna. Why... Are you...

He lets his sentence outstanding and joins the small stone basin which is in the heart of the garden. He is dropped in grass and lets his hand hangs in the basin. The small multicoloured fish of the pond dance around his hand, reflecting the Moon glares as a star dust would be walked by the movements of water.

-What do I have to make?

The hair in the face, he closes the eyes to sigh lengthily. A ball is formed in his throat, and of new tears sigh to cut through a path in his eyes. He poses his arm on those and shakes the head.

-Not yet! It is enough! It is not my fault!

He opens the eyes and poses them on the incipient Moon. A pearl. One would have said a pearl, hang in a black and inaccessible vastness. Just like Her. She is his Pearl, the small jewel which shines continuously in the black of the all-day-life. The only one which gives him the force to continue to be raised, still and still, to fight against all the obstacles, against all that wanted to block him in his way. She is like...

-A lantern...

A diffuse gleam illuminates the boy. Anna appears, carrying a small candle in the heart of a metal prison.

-Yoh...What are you making there?

The boy raises and rubs the eyes.

-If you want to sleep, it is not the best place, he says her while smiling.

A mask is so easy to cover. It is enough one moment, of thousandths of second to recompose a face. Whereas our heart spends years to be forgotten and to erase the wounds.

-I know it already...

She poses the lamp on a table close to the pond, and sits down close to him.

-You know Yoh...

She stops, and raises the eyes towards the Moon in her turn. The boy feels the ball in his throat to be reformed. Is she going to speak to him about the fact that she feels. Is she going to acknowledge to him that she is turned over to observe Hao? Is she going to recognize that she does not like him any more? -I must speak to you about something... The boy swallows.

-I listen to you. Go ahead.

The Itako young person observes the Moon and plays with her chain of pearls.

-Are you nervous?

She smiles. A truth smile. To tend. Clearly. Pure.

-Just a little... what I have to say to you wont be really pleasant, neither for you nor for me...

The boy agrees.

-Let us do our better so that it is not more difficult than that is it already...

Anna looks at the basin by lowering the eyes. Yoh bits the lip. He wants to be struck. What a idiotic! Why doesn't he find the words, now that he needs them? Where has the insurance passed, the pretence of self-control which he has had in front of Hao? What has become all the beautiful speeches which he has invented and repeated? All that it does manage to say now, it is that? "Make so that that is the least painful possible!" Why not to say to her directly that he knows too?

-Anna, I...

He scans the girl's face, and a moonbeam clings to the white skin of this one. Yoh passes his finger on the tear and catches the chin of beautiful Itako. She turns her face towards his, but she keeps the lowered eyes.

-Can't it be so serious like that, isn't it?

She gets clear and rights in the eyes looked at him. Her black eyes are bathed tears. She sweeps them with anger gesture.

-Don't you even understand when you must stop joking?

Yoh moves back a little, astonished by this rage in the voice of frail girl who cries gently right front.

-But...

She sweeps his beginning of argument of an epic of the hand, as she would have driven out a fly.

-Keep silent yourself! You must not understand? You see it well, that it is not easy for me?

The boy agrees.

-You see these tears well not? You see them hanging the light of the Moon and this candle? You see them running along my cheeks?

Again, he agrees, without anything to say.

-You do not understand that I cannot speak as I would like it? You do not include when you must stop joking? You do not see when I require...Need that you would be serious?

This time, Yoh stops her.

-Wait a second Anna.

But the girl has not finished pouring her anger. She hatred against him which does not understand. Her execration for the other, well with the shelter with his friends, far from these questions. Her dislike towards herself, her anger to have yielded so easily. Her feeling of impotence not to be able to choose freely.

-I am not...I cannot...

She falls to knees and starts to cry more and more extremely. Yoh has risen in his place, the tight fists.

-Have you finished?

The girl snorts and cries again more.

-Then I can perhaps place one sentence too. You also you must understand certain things, Anna. This kind of request goes in the two directions. If you await something of me, me, I should await something of your share in return.

He turns the back to her, and tightens the fists, like never before. A pearl of blood runs along his phalanges and crushes in grass.

-You say that I do not understand. You support that I do not make any effort. That I am only one funny, that an idiot who does not know when to joke and when he should not do it. It is true, in a direction.

He faces her again, and kneels close to her.

-But you are not in me, Anna. You do not know as I have badly, me too.

The girl raises her pupils of ebonies towards that of the shaman. She sees that he bleeds, and that he has a hand posed on the heart.

-You do not know as I have the impression that I am crushed. You cannot know, quite simply, because that never arrived to you. And I does not wish it for nothing in the world...

He poses his hands on tender grass of the garden and supports his face against that of the girl.

-You do not know, and I hope that you will never know it. Because this day, that will want to say that I definitively lost you. Look in my eyes, Anna. Do I seem to joke?

Anna swallows and snorts once more.

-N...No.

-Because it is not the case. And that was not it a few moments ago either. I... I know already that about which you were going to speak to me. You turn over to see him. You hide in the lane. He says it to me, when he came to find me this evening.

-He comes to see you?

Yoh agrees in silence.

-I know everything...I cannot know what occurs in your head, where in your heart, even if I would give all for the knowledge...the unknown draws up myself again in front of me. And this unknown there frightens me more that all the remainder.

The boy sits down slowly in grass and crosses the legs. Anna, her, remains posed on her calves. She does not cry any more.

-I do not know any more what I must do...recognizes her.

Yoh smiles and poses his fresh hand on the cheek of the girl. She closes the eyes. It is alleviating. -You must make like you feel it... She reopens the eyes and sees the sorrow which these words has caused him.

-I know that...It should not much help you like answer. I am not good with tall thing in these cases...It is enough that I fall in front of a true problem, and I lose my means. More intelligent sentences, more certainty, if it is not that which I do not want any more to see you crying... And that also that I very badly have with the belly by saying that!

She smiles, and he answers him by a small choked laughter.

-I do not want to be made feel sorry for. I do not want that you think of me. I want that you choose what you want. I want...I would like that you remain with me. But is not with me to decide some. You are free. All that I wish you, it is to be in peace with yourself, even if that musthurt me...

Anna smiles. She pushes back a straggling lock of hair of the boy, and closes the eyes. Their lips are sought gently. When they were finally, Anna cries gently. No the sorrow. Of joy. She knows now. She is in peace with herself. She would be it still as long as these lips would not leave those of the young shaman.


	11. epilogue

Chapter eleven: epilogue

_One year later _

The sun lays down on the hill of Fumbari, colouring the world and the sky of a mixture of hot colour: pink, yellow, and a point of red and orange has created a space of peace and well-being on this inn where Yoh and Anna lives. The young shaman, lengths on a sofa of black colour, looks at television without much interest. The Itako joins him, coiling herself against him, seeking the shelter of his arms.

-Does it go? she asks him. You have the air lost in your thoughts.

The boy looks her a long time in the eyes before taking a deep breathing, as if he awakes of a long sleep.

-I'm fine, do not worry.

-You do not think of it yet, isn't it?

He avoids her accusing glance, scanning the Moon which roses now outside.

-Hum...

-When thus will you cease? It is not really any more with the style of the day you know it, no?

The boy raises the shoulders.

-Hum...

The young Itako shakes the head, marks of her dissension.

-I do not understand why...

The boy asks her not to continue of an epic of the hand.

-Stops please. I do not reconsider so that it occurred one year ago. Finally not directly. Just...

-You think of him?

He agrees.

-I wonder...Why doesn't he reappear any more.

-Perhaps...he decides to leave us finally quiet...I do not know.

-Not really his kind, don't you believe?

The girl has well to recognize it.

-I do not have really an explanation either, but...I will not feel sorry for it. He does not miss me especially, if you want all to know.

-Neither to me. But I cannot prevent myself from thinking of him...

Yoh's spirit sets out again one year behind. With this famous meeting on the hill, the last which he has had with his elder brother, all-powerful Hao. He has never spoken about that with anybody, except with Anna ,one of the first concerned. He has not be able to solve there It seems to him that this discussion has sealed a kind of pact between his brother and himsefl. As if this promise which they have been made is to regulate their different forever, as if it is finally to enable them to live, each one on their side, separated from the obligations which they have one towards the other. Hao has passed a pact with his young brother, and, as opposed to what himself waited, he has lost, and Yoh has carried the heart of the Itako. No. Not like that...He refuses to speak about her like price of a contest. She is not a side of meat, not an object which one gains while playing lottery. She has chosen, only, and has returned towards him. And he is happy of this end.

-Not the first price of a lottery...

He tightens Anna in his arms, while the Moon is reflected outside in the small pond, pretence to bless these two young people. A shade cuts out above, wearing a long cape floating with the wind, of long black hair framing his silhouette.

-You are a better painter than me, little brother...

He is diverted and disappears in the shade, without nobody seeing him.

END


End file.
